5 ms·

Can an American please explain how a 3h41 minute car journey to Tahoe turns into an 8h49(!) train journey? Are your trains pulled by horses or something?

microcolonel 6y ago
The roads are really good (though the official speed limits are lower than they should be), and nobody wanted the trains since they became obsolete for a lot of North American geography, which in turn reduced the overall interest and investment in trains. The U.S. also has very high standards for the structural integrity of railcars, which precludes many international trainset vendors. The costs of acquiring land for rail projects are also higher, because of very strong property rights. Basically there are a lot of reasons, some of them are not mere political disagreements.
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  Is there no push for this to be stimulated again? In the EU there is a lot of talk about stimulating high-speed rail. Currently it's a total mess though, with each country still having their own standards, high-speed tracks having non-highspeed portions through cities, and simply not having sufficient capacity to support anywhere near the amount of passengers that are carried by air. But I really hope some day the EU will standardise this too, and get more tracks built. I'd love to take a train between Barcelona and Amsterdam. But right now it is 2 hours by plane or 14 by train with 2 changes. And the price has a similar ratio in favour of the plane, which makes the train simply nonviable.
  - brianwawok 6y ago
    There is talk. But the cost to build rail is so stupid in the US. You spend billions... connect two cities.. and then what? You can't get around in many cities without a car, so you are still stuck. Kind of a lot of problems on top of each other from construction costs to land ownership to right of way to city layouts that make trains rough to work in the US. (which stinks, I LOVE trains. had a nice train commute in Chicago, but those are rare in the US)
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    California is building a high speed rail line. But there is an enormous amount of reflexive opposition from NIMBY's, Conservatives, and Libertarians. To tell you how bad it is there are 100 year old train tunnels between New York and New Jersey that must be replaced and Republicans have killed the projects to replace them _twice_ simply because they are rail projects and passenger rail is 'bad'
    - microcolonel 6y ago
      > California is building a high speed rail line. Allegedly. > But there is an enormous amount of reflexive opposition from NIMBYs, Conservatives, and Libertarians. The greatest obstacles to California's high speed rail project are vote-buying politicians and the voters who do not pay attention or understand what they are doing. Conservatives and libertarians may have a lot to say about it, I gather that's because it has been such a colossal money pit boondoggle affair; but you may have noticed that conservatives and libertarians don't exactly hold a political majority in California, so I doubt that their objections are a major obstacle to its completion. The plans they actually began to build with won't even produce much of a service, the target speeds are disappointing and there are so many detours from any meaningful corridor; and we haven't even seen the reality of it yet, which will probably be even more disappointing than the low expectations. > ...Republicans have killed the projects to replace them _twice_ simply because they are rail projects and passenger rail is 'bad' Well, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that was probably not why they excluded that project from the budget.
      - Gibbon1 6y ago
        As you can see this response proves my point 100%
      - MrFlynn 6y ago
        > > California is building a high speed rail line. > Allegedly. Not allegedly, it's actually being built right now. 119 miles of it in fact. It's not the whole system, but it's the IOS that they promised that they would build. > the target speeds are disappointing and there are so many detours from any meaningful corridor... The target speed is 220 mph between Gilroy and Burbank which is in line with the current highest speed HSR systems in the world. The route actually makes a fair amount of sense given that the cities in the central valley are not that small, especially since the stations in those cities are designed for trains to express through them. Rather, it makes more sense compared to the I-5 corridor which would have required branch lines to be built, not to mention the other fundamental issues that proposal had.
sroussey 6y ago
Don’t worry, the drive can take that long if you are planning on a weekend trip.
hackcasual 6y ago
It's not really a train journey, it's mostly by bus.
- Arelius 6y ago
  The California Zephyr does in fact make the daily trip from Emeryville through Truckee, and on to Reno and beyond.
zackkitzmiller 6y ago
There are several reasons, terrain being one of them. Also the commuter/long distance tracks are all owned by the freight liners, so passanger trains have to yield for them. There are also hour+ stops at some stations.
technofiend 6y ago
We don't have separate high speed rail tracks like Europe does; we have a single rail system used for slow cargo trains that take priority over passenger trains. Imagine driving everywhere with giant cargo trucks driving 80 km / hr in every lane with no way to pass them and you'll get the picture.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  One other important thing is that in many places railroads used to have more features like more tracks and electrification. The interesting thing about American railroads is that unlike all other forms of transportation in the US, railroads pay property tax. Therefore, to reduce tax bills and improve their books for mergers, many railroads tore up their improvements.
- machello13 6y ago
  > slow cargo trains that take priority over passenger trains. This is only half true. Legally, Amtrak has priority, and railroads are required to cede right-of-way to passenger trains. In practice, the railroads don't cede priority nearly as much as they should. This is an ongoing fight. Amtrak has a whole site about it here: https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance
GekkePrutser 6y ago
This discrepancy is much higher from the other destinations they mention, so I would imagine there is either no station nearby the lake so you have to take another mode for the last leg, or you have to get some complicated multiple-train route with long layovers :)
- TylerE 6y ago
  That's wildly imaginative. But no. Train routes don't exist. Outside commuter routes long distance rail basically don't exist in the US, outside a few connectors between major cities. This is IT: https://trn.trains.com/~/media/files/pdf/map-of-the-month/tm1103-amtrak-day-night.pdf https://trn.trains.com/~/media/files/pdf/map-of-the-month/tm... Keep in mind the scale here... see that small-looking gap between Flagstaff and Tucson? That's 400km... you could fit most European countries in there.
  - GekkePrutser 6y ago
    Good point, I was speaking of European experience. But still, here with a really fine train grid, the train is much less efficient due to the many stops and many changes you have to make to get somewhere :( It can take up to 2-3 times as much time to get somewhere by train than by car.
  - kaybe 6y ago
    What's going on with the Sanford-Lorton connection?
    - TylerE 6y ago
      That's the autotrain. Carries passengers AND the car. T https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_Train https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_Train
      - kaybe 6y ago
        Is it on a ferry or is the map just not accurate there? I don't see it on the list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_ferry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_ferry
Arelius 6y ago
Yeah, so so the drive from Emeryville to Roseville is about 2 hrs via train or car, the car generally being a bit faster, the vast majority of the difference in time takes place from Roseville to Truckee, where the modern Freeway has had significant earthworks to provide a drive that can take place in about an hour, wheras the train takes a much older route that is both longer and ends up having a max speed much closer to 30 mph. Additionally Amtrak doesn't have right-of-way on those rails, so delays due to freight trains are super common on that section of track.
aidenn0 6y ago
Much of California is single-track[1] and the freight trains have right-of-way, meaning you spend a decent amount of time sitting on a siding track waiting for a mile-long freight train to go by. 1: As in a single track for both directions, meaning there are limited places where a north-bound and south-bound train can pass each other.
pcl 6y ago
The rail tracks in much of the western states are owned by the freight industry, and Amtrak leases time on them. As a result, the tracks and schedules are freight-oriented, not passenger-oriented. This means the tracks are not graded for high-speed relative lightweight passenger rolling stock. Also, the passenger trains need to fit into the schedules dictated by the freight traffic. Which is really a shame. The track from SF through Lake Tahoe runs just past Sugar Bowl and into Truckee, and is about 180 miles. A ski train would be really easy.
kccqzy 6y ago
The railroad is centered around cargo. And the American freight rail industry is in fact pretty healthy and profitable, unlike passenger rail. Now consider viewpoints like this Economist article: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2010/07/22/high-speed-railroading https://www.economist.com/briefing/2010/07/22/high-speed-rai... "America’s system of rail freight is the world’s best. High-speed passenger trains could ruin it" and you get why passenger rail is discouraged.
rconti 6y ago
I was actually surprised you could do it by train at all. I wouldn't even know how to begin to attempt a train journey in the US. (other than hitting up Amtrak's website and hoping for the best). I was also surprised at train travel in Norway on my recent visit; I hoped to book a ticket from Oslo to Bergen but it was basically impossible. Only a couple of trains a day, all sold out. I drove instead, which was also a shock, since I spent virtually my entire drive at or below 80kph. The train would have been roughly the same speed -- so, not as bad as your Tahoe example, but not great by continental European standards either :)
einpoklum 6y ago
American capitalists, especially the car industry, lobbied heavily to make this the case, and also allowed privately-owned public transport services to deteriorate.
missedthecue 6y ago
Amtraks stop for 20 minutes every 30 minutes to let passengers on and off at each stop. A car journey only stops if you need gas (15 minutes) or if you need to use personal facilities (10 minutes). Furthermore, an amtrak will only hit a top speed of 79mph, and only a few times during the journey, while a car can stay at 75mph for most the journey.
- steffan 6y ago
  > while a car can stay at 75mph for most the journey. You've never driven to Tahoe on a holiday weekend, I see

microcolonel 6y ago

The roads are really good (though the official speed limits are lower than they should be), and nobody wanted the trains since they became obsolete for a lot of North American geography, which in turn reduced the overall interest and investment in trains. The U.S. also has very high standards for the structural integrity of railcars, which precludes many international trainset vendors. The costs of acquiring land for rail projects are also higher, because of very strong property rights. Basically there are a lot of reasons, some of them are not mere political disagreements.

GekkePrutser 6y ago
Is there no push for this to be stimulated again? In the EU there is a lot of talk about stimulating high-speed rail. Currently it's a total mess though, with each country still having their own standards, high-speed tracks having non-highspeed portions through cities, and simply not having sufficient capacity to support anywhere near the amount of passengers that are carried by air. But I really hope some day the EU will standardise this too, and get more tracks built. I'd love to take a train between Barcelona and Amsterdam. But right now it is 2 hours by plane or 14 by train with 2 changes. And the price has a similar ratio in favour of the plane, which makes the train simply nonviable.
- brianwawok 6y ago
  There is talk. But the cost to build rail is so stupid in the US. You spend billions... connect two cities.. and then what? You can't get around in many cities without a car, so you are still stuck. Kind of a lot of problems on top of each other from construction costs to land ownership to right of way to city layouts that make trains rough to work in the US. (which stinks, I LOVE trains. had a nice train commute in Chicago, but those are rare in the US)
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  California is building a high speed rail line. But there is an enormous amount of reflexive opposition from NIMBY's, Conservatives, and Libertarians. To tell you how bad it is there are 100 year old train tunnels between New York and New Jersey that must be replaced and Republicans have killed the projects to replace them _twice_ simply because they are rail projects and passenger rail is 'bad'
  - microcolonel 6y ago
    > California is building a high speed rail line. Allegedly. > But there is an enormous amount of reflexive opposition from NIMBYs, Conservatives, and Libertarians. The greatest obstacles to California's high speed rail project are vote-buying politicians and the voters who do not pay attention or understand what they are doing. Conservatives and libertarians may have a lot to say about it, I gather that's because it has been such a colossal money pit boondoggle affair; but you may have noticed that conservatives and libertarians don't exactly hold a political majority in California, so I doubt that their objections are a major obstacle to its completion. The plans they actually began to build with won't even produce much of a service, the target speeds are disappointing and there are so many detours from any meaningful corridor; and we haven't even seen the reality of it yet, which will probably be even more disappointing than the low expectations. > ...Republicans have killed the projects to replace them _twice_ simply because they are rail projects and passenger rail is 'bad' Well, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that was probably not why they excluded that project from the budget.
    - Gibbon1 6y ago
      As you can see this response proves my point 100%
    - MrFlynn 6y ago
      > > California is building a high speed rail line. > Allegedly. Not allegedly, it's actually being built right now. 119 miles of it in fact. It's not the whole system, but it's the IOS that they promised that they would build. > the target speeds are disappointing and there are so many detours from any meaningful corridor... The target speed is 220 mph between Gilroy and Burbank which is in line with the current highest speed HSR systems in the world. The route actually makes a fair amount of sense given that the cities in the central valley are not that small, especially since the stations in those cities are designed for trains to express through them. Rather, it makes more sense compared to the I-5 corridor which would have required branch lines to be built, not to mention the other fundamental issues that proposal had.

sroussey 6y ago

Don’t worry, the drive can take that long if you are planning on a weekend trip.

hackcasual 6y ago

It's not really a train journey, it's mostly by bus.

Arelius 6y ago
The California Zephyr does in fact make the daily trip from Emeryville through Truckee, and on to Reno and beyond.

zackkitzmiller 6y ago

There are several reasons, terrain being one of them. Also the commuter/long distance tracks are all owned by the freight liners, so passanger trains have to yield for them. There are also hour+ stops at some stations.

technofiend 6y ago

We don't have separate high speed rail tracks like Europe does; we have a single rail system used for slow cargo trains that take priority over passenger trains. Imagine driving everywhere with giant cargo trucks driving 80 km / hr in every lane with no way to pass them and you'll get the picture.

bobthepanda 6y ago
One other important thing is that in many places railroads used to have more features like more tracks and electrification. The interesting thing about American railroads is that unlike all other forms of transportation in the US, railroads pay property tax. Therefore, to reduce tax bills and improve their books for mergers, many railroads tore up their improvements.
machello13 6y ago
> slow cargo trains that take priority over passenger trains. This is only half true. Legally, Amtrak has priority, and railroads are required to cede right-of-way to passenger trains. In practice, the railroads don't cede priority nearly as much as they should. This is an ongoing fight. Amtrak has a whole site about it here: https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance

GekkePrutser 6y ago

This discrepancy is much higher from the other destinations they mention, so I would imagine there is either no station nearby the lake so you have to take another mode for the last leg, or you have to get some complicated multiple-train route with long layovers :)

TylerE 6y ago
That's wildly imaginative. But no. Train routes don't exist. Outside commuter routes long distance rail basically don't exist in the US, outside a few connectors between major cities. This is IT: https://trn.trains.com/~/media/files/pdf/map-of-the-month/tm1103-amtrak-day-night.pdf https://trn.trains.com/~/media/files/pdf/map-of-the-month/tm... Keep in mind the scale here... see that small-looking gap between Flagstaff and Tucson? That's 400km... you could fit most European countries in there.
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  Good point, I was speaking of European experience. But still, here with a really fine train grid, the train is much less efficient due to the many stops and many changes you have to make to get somewhere :( It can take up to 2-3 times as much time to get somewhere by train than by car.
- kaybe 6y ago
  What's going on with the Sanford-Lorton connection?
  - TylerE 6y ago
    That's the autotrain. Carries passengers AND the car. T https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_Train https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_Train
    - kaybe 6y ago
      Is it on a ferry or is the map just not accurate there? I don't see it on the list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_ferry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_ferry

Arelius 6y ago

Yeah, so so the drive from Emeryville to Roseville is about 2 hrs via train or car, the car generally being a bit faster, the vast majority of the difference in time takes place from Roseville to Truckee, where the modern Freeway has had significant earthworks to provide a drive that can take place in about an hour, wheras the train takes a much older route that is both longer and ends up having a max speed much closer to 30 mph. Additionally Amtrak doesn't have right-of-way on those rails, so delays due to freight trains are super common on that section of track.

aidenn0 6y ago

Much of California is single-track[1] and the freight trains have right-of-way, meaning you spend a decent amount of time sitting on a siding track waiting for a mile-long freight train to go by. 1: As in a single track for both directions, meaning there are limited places where a north-bound and south-bound train can pass each other.

pcl 6y ago

The rail tracks in much of the western states are owned by the freight industry, and Amtrak leases time on them. As a result, the tracks and schedules are freight-oriented, not passenger-oriented. This means the tracks are not graded for high-speed relative lightweight passenger rolling stock. Also, the passenger trains need to fit into the schedules dictated by the freight traffic. Which is really a shame. The track from SF through Lake Tahoe runs just past Sugar Bowl and into Truckee, and is about 180 miles. A ski train would be really easy.

kccqzy 6y ago

The railroad is centered around cargo. And the American freight rail industry is in fact pretty healthy and profitable, unlike passenger rail. Now consider viewpoints like this Economist article: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2010/07/22/high-speed-railroading https://www.economist.com/briefing/2010/07/22/high-speed-rai... "America’s system of rail freight is the world’s best. High-speed passenger trains could ruin it" and you get why passenger rail is discouraged.

rconti 6y ago

I was actually surprised you could do it by train at all. I wouldn't even know how to begin to attempt a train journey in the US. (other than hitting up Amtrak's website and hoping for the best). I was also surprised at train travel in Norway on my recent visit; I hoped to book a ticket from Oslo to Bergen but it was basically impossible. Only a couple of trains a day, all sold out. I drove instead, which was also a shock, since I spent virtually my entire drive at or below 80kph. The train would have been roughly the same speed -- so, not as bad as your Tahoe example, but not great by continental European standards either :)

einpoklum 6y ago

American capitalists, especially the car industry, lobbied heavily to make this the case, and also allowed privately-owned public transport services to deteriorate.

missedthecue 6y ago

Amtraks stop for 20 minutes every 30 minutes to let passengers on and off at each stop. A car journey only stops if you need gas (15 minutes) or if you need to use personal facilities (10 minutes). Furthermore, an amtrak will only hit a top speed of 79mph, and only a few times during the journey, while a car can stay at 75mph for most the journey.

steffan 6y ago
> while a car can stay at 75mph for most the journey. You've never driven to Tahoe on a holiday weekend, I see